


Sticks and Stones

by unorigelnal (jayburding)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Canon Trans Character, Fluff, Kid Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2015-11-25
Packaged: 2018-05-03 06:49:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5280848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayburding/pseuds/unorigelnal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bull's little girl does not appreciate bullies, and goes straight to her Tama when she overhears something nasty in the gardens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sticks and Stones

**Author's Note:**

> A brief interlude with Signy Adaar, daughter of the Iron Bull and Inquisitor Reginn Adaar.
> 
> Warning for brief discussion of transphobia relating to a canon character.

Signy overheard things a lot in the garden: just because the adults never noticed her didn't mean she didn't catch them muttering behind their hands much louder than they think they're being. The Chantry sisters weren’t even trying not to get caught, standing around looking like tall toadstools in their hats, twittering like birds between their hands. She wouldn’t have stopped, she was meant to be meeting Mati Fafnir and she was already late, but she heard a name she knew and couldn’t help but stop.

A lot of it she understood, probably more than they would credit her with, but a lot of it she didn't. The things they said about Krem she didn't understand at all. Some people said horrible things about others, like their mothers never told them off for being cruel and scolded them until they were good. Signy's mama wouldn't allow it, and she always said to tell an adult if someone was being a bully.

Not that Signy couldn't beat up a bully, like she'd done to Karras when he said a bad word about the little Lavellans. Even if he was twelve, so really he should have known better, she was only a little bit smaller than him. Nana Lavellan had said well done afterwards, though Tama had said maybe next time don't knock his teeth out, even if he deserves it. A black eye hurt your hand less.

It was different when it was adults though. You couldn’t thump an adult for saying bad things. Really you were meant to go to adults if someone was being a bully, but what did you do when the bully was an adult?

She wandered back to Fafnir, frowning over the problem. He didn’t notice her immediately, focused on the little elfroot shoot he’s trying to coax up out of the earth. Today was the day she was meant to be helping with the plants, but all she could focus on was the sisters gossiping. She tapped him on the horn to catch his attention.

He looked up, smiling, ready to joke about her dawdling, but his face dulled to a frown as he looked at her face. “What is it, imekari? Is something the matter?”

Signy shook her head, not because there was nothing wrong, but she didn’t know how to say what was. She fidgeted with her hands, fingers fluttering anxiously, but couldn’t form the words right.

When someone was being a bully, you were meant to tell an adult, so she supposed it was the same even if the bully was an adult too. Signy couldn't hit them, not hard enough anyway, and Fafnir wouldn’t because he was too nice, but Tama might. Tama probably would. Almost definitely, especially for Krem. She should tell him.

“I’ll be back quick,” she said, her hands shaping _sorry, sorry, sorry_. “Promise you’ll wait for me to come back? I still want to help.”

Tama's voice was loud before she even reached the inn, and she spotted him as she rounded the corner, knocking down the dummies with a maul easily as big as she was. Cass was going to make him replace all of them if he'd broken them again.

Krem was there too, watching with that look like he had a headache. She had to be careful not to let him hear: she didn’t want him to hurt. Signy stood off to one side where her Tama could see and tried to catch his attention without getting too close. He had knocked her down once by accident when she stood on his wrong side. It had hurt a lot and she'd cried, but Tama had been so scared she couldn't be mad at him.

Eventually he spotted her and he must have seen what Fafnir saw because he dropped the maul immediately. “What’s up Sigs?”

She waved him to come over, which he did, and knelt down so she can whisper it to him. He already knew that was what she wanted; Tama was good at knowing things like that.

“I need to tell you about a bully. Not mine!” she added hurriedly as Tama went stiff, a growl on his lips. “I heard some of the Chantry sisters talking about Krem in the garden, and they said words I didn’t know, but they sounded mean. _Sounded_ mean.”

She signed as well, because the words weren’t explaining like she wanted them too. There was sound, and then _sound_ , the way a word could come out of a mouth so beautiful, but then howl like demons around the edges. Without a meaning, the word they had said sounded pretty, like a lot of Orlesian words did, but they dripped with poison, and the way they had laughed-

“Can you tell me what they said?”

Signy glanced at Krem, who was being a gentleman and had turned away so he couldn’t read her signs. When she’d first learned how to from Nana Lavellan, she’d taught the Chargers too: they had sat in a semi-circle around her, watching the shapes she made and trying to imitate her. Skinner and Dalish were very good, but they knew some already so really that was cheating. Krem had not been so good at it at first, getting his fingers all twisted up, but he’d promised to practise so they could speak all in sign if they wanted. He was so good now he could have read her sign as fast as Tama, but still he looked away. Krem was nice like that.

It was hard to repeat what she had heard: she signed what she could, but she hated the way it felt in her hands, the way the strange words tasted on her tongue when she had to say them. Every last one was nasty, bitter and hurtful like trying to eat thorns. Laughing about body parts, and when a person wasn’t a person, and why would you want to touch someone like that, let alone marry them or anything else, and how, but why-

Tama tapped her hands and she realised she was babbling, no sense just snapping fingers. He held her hands gently between his until her fingers stopped moving, and everything relaxed. She took a deep breath and felt a lot better.

"Don't worry Sigs,” Tama said. He didn’t look mad, but he never did. “I'll take care of it." That was that then. If Tama said he would, then he would. No arguments. Signy kissed his cheek while she could still reach, purring in response to Tama’s much deeper rumble as he hugged her tight.

“Go on, I think your uncle’s waiting.”

She nearly skipped back to rejoin Mati Fafnir, certain that it would be fixed.  
  
There was a lot of noise in the garden later, but Signy was helping Fafnir plant elfroot, and really that was much more important.

-

“You know your da told me what happened.”

For a moment, she thought Krem was talking about the fact that Cassandra had caught Tama red handed and set him to making more dummies for the practise ring while the Mumquisitor was too busy to intervene, but then she remembered. To be honest, Signy had almost forgotten about the whole thing until then. Tama had said he would fix it, and he had because Signy had not heard a single bad word from the Chantry sisters since then. She hadn’t thought he would tell Krem.

“It was a good thing you did,” Krem continued. “Thank you.”

Signy blushed and flapped her hands. _No, no, no._ “That’s what you’re meant to do with bullies! They shouldn’t get away with telling lies about people!”

“Some people don’t think that they were telling lies,” Krem said. “That I’m the one who’s lying, using a made up Qunari word for things that aren’t real.”

He says it so easily, but Signy is horrified. “Tama taught me about Aqun-Athlok” she spelled it out on her fingers because she struggled to pronounce it “when I was little. It is definitely real! If they don’t have their own word, they should use ours instead of just pretending it’s not real!”

Hugs made her feel better about bad things and it sounded like Krem had a lot of bad things to feel better about. She's a little too big to be picked up anymore by people who aren't Qunari, so she hugged him round the middle instead.

“Look, I even know a sign for it.” She didn’t actually- she’d asked Nana Lavellan, and Naule had admitted she didn’t know of a sign that specific, but she’d helped Signy piece together a shape that would work. Split into its parts it was _no match heart body._ She showed Krem how to make it and it was obvious he remembered each of the shapes that made it.

Krem looked like she'd hit him. That wasn’t what she meant to do.  
  
The shape of her hands dissolved into _sorry sorry sorry_. "I just wanted to show you that they were wrong. It’s a real word you can say or sign! They were lying about Aqun-Athlok, and about touching and marrying and everything else! You’re nice enough to marry and-"

She realised what she’d just said and blushed harder.  
  
Krem smiled, the way her parents did sometimes when they thought she couldn't see and finally hugged her back. "Nice enough to marry is it?"  
  
"Maybe," she mumbled, hiding her burning face in his shirt. "You're really good at fighting too. That helps."  
  
Krem laughed, but looked a little worried. "Do me a favour, kidlet."  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Never tell your da that."

-

“So Krem-puff, I hear you’re marriage material.”

Tama was really good at knowing things.


End file.
